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Let's make some noise for the complainers in the world

 

A retrospective
response to the noise
police

By Jacey Gibb,
Assistant Editor

try my darndest to be

a decent human being.
This includes fulfilling all
of my various life roles to at
least a satisfactory degree:
be a good student, a good
employee, a somewhat-
good boyfriend, and a
good neighbour. I’ve never
whipped out my sharpest
Mr. Rogers impression
and showed up on my
neighbour’s step with
freshly iced cupcakes, but I
haven’t burned our building
down, either. I figured I was
doing my job just fine, until
I got a phone call from our
building’s rental office this
past weekend.

After an evening of flip
cup and heavy drinking,
disguised cleverly as my
birthday party, my landlord
called to inform me that
there had been a steady

18

stream of noise complaints
flooding their office that
morning. The exact number
of complains was apparently
an impressive (and possibly
impossible) 10-15. She
hysterically recounted to
me about how people were
saying that my guests were
throwing drinks off of

the balcony and that beer
cans now littered the lawn
around our building—turns
out by “littered” she had
meant there were two, but

66

left to soak in the noise
complaint aftermath and
begin to develop my own
frustrations.

Between my two jobs
and going to school full-
time, I don’t really have the
spare evenings to be hosting
regular shindigs at my place.
Going out of your way to file
a complaint against such an
infrequent thing seems like a
pretty big waste, doesn’t it?

I could probably lie and
lead you folks to believe that

apparently wrong.

who’s counting, right?
Because we've never
had a problem with noise
before and we’re usually
not total assholes, my
landlord let things off
with a stern warning
and an ominous “Don’t
let this happen again.” |
wish that everything had
ended there. Instead, I was

this was some grandiose
Project X league party, but
it wasn’t. At its peak, there
were maybe 20 people and
a cat in my place and the
majority of them trickled off
by the 1 a.m. mark. Don’t
I get bonus points for not
being popular enough to
have a wild, off the hook
“90s teen movie-styled

Project X | Photo by Beth Dubber - © 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

party? I guess not.

But enough about me;
let’s talk about my saint
neighbours.

Not a single one of them
possesses the charm of a
Kramer or the friendliness of
a Flanders. From what I can
gather through infrequent
interactions via awkward
elevator rides, the majority
of them are young couples—
young couples that like to
have people over.

Whenever I find myself

Ive never felt steamed enough to contact our landlord
and file a complaint because | always felt that there was
an ‘I dont tell on you if you don't tell on me’ policy. | was

calling it an early night on
the weekend, I’m lullabied
to sleep by drunken anthem
chanting on a nearby
balcony or terrible trance
music coming through the
wall from next door. I’ve
never felt steamed enough
to contact our landlord and
file a complaint because |
always felt that there was

an “I don’t tell on you if you
don’t tell on me” policy. I
was apparently wrong.

I’ve simmered down
since the noise complaint
incident, but I’m still
incredibly bitter. The next
time my neighbours are
having a good time till the
wee hours of the morning,
should I demonstrate the
same courtesy they showed
me? Or is this just a big
conspiracy to get all the
tenants to turn on each other
like animals? Psychological
game of cat and mouse
or not, my place has been
written off for future antics
until the heat dies down.

While I’m sure
my landlord was just
demonstrating some
management theatrics
(for there to have been 15
complaints, our entire floor,
including us, would’ve had
to have complained, as well
as the floor beneath us and
half of the floor beneath
them), the whole situation
has made me remarkably
resentful towards the people
I share walls with.

Home sweet home!